Lindir Bored
by sylc
Summary: Lindir is very very bored. In search of amusement, he goes to bother his Uncle Erestor.


"I am bored, Uncle Erestor. Amuse me."

Erestor looked up from his papers and stared in bemusement at the small minstrel who had recently entered his rooms uninvited and sunk gracefully into the chair on the other side of his desk.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "Are you drunk, Lindir?"

"Not at all," Lindir said, shooting him a disappointed look, as if surprised at the ignorance of Erestor's question. "If I had been drunk, I would have brought in a bottle of wine and invited you to join me." He ran a hand idly through his long, glossy hair.

Erestor's brow rose. On the rare occasion that he had seen Lindir drunk and able to walk, the young minstrel had never invited him to drink with him. He stared across the table at the tiny elf who sat with legs primly crossed and tunic skirt self-consciously pulled down over his knees as if he were hiding a treasure of the realm up there. He sighed.

"Lindir, my dear nephew, what you have just asked of me is incredibly rude," he said. "Had you been anyone else save my nephew, I would have thrown you out immediately. I have no time to entertain you. Go and play your fiddle for a few hours."

"I already have," Lindir said, folding his slender arms.

"And your flute?"

"That too."

"Have you danced?"

"Since dawn." Lindir rolled his eyes.

"What about your friends?"

"They are busy."

_As am I_, Erestor thought irritatedly. "Have you eaten?"

"No, but my dancing teacher says I need to lose weight." Lindir's pretty dulcet voice had become a dull monotone.

Erestor frowned and briefly looked his nephew up and down. "Why do you need to lose weight? You are one of the thinnest elves of my acquaintance."

Lindir rolled his eyes again. "Yes, but I need to do a balancing dance with an elf that is tinier than me so I need to lose six pounds so that our weights match up," he said grumpily.

"No wonder you are irritated and bored," Erestor said. "You are starved! Why did your teacher not choose that titchy little fellow - you know, the one with black hair?"

"He is the one with whom I have to do the dance," Lindir said, tilting his head.

"Oh." There was a silence while Erestor processed this information. Then he blinked. "Are you saying that you are only six pounds heavier than him?" he asked incredulously. "But he is tiny!"

"Normally, no. He is usually twelve pounds lighter than me," Lindir droned. "He is to gain six pounds and I am to lose six pounds so that we are even. Happy?"

"Not at all. You are too thin as it is." Erestor said.

"I did not come here to argue my weight with you, Uncle," Lindir said. "I came here to be amused."

"Well, I am giving you company, however unamusing it may be to you," Erestor said. "And you are in no position to complain."

In response, Lindir gave a great, long-suffering sigh and tilted his head in the other direction. "I suppose."

There was a long silence. Erestor returned his attention to his notes. Lindir looked around the room for a few moments and then, his expression disinterested, dropped his gaze to the papers that lay before Erestor. "What are you doing?"

"Reading," Erestor said.

"Music manuscripts?"

"No."

Lindir sighed heavily again. "How boring."

Erestor stared at his sour-faced nephew for a few moments and then shook his head in disbelief and returned his attention to his papers, a small smile on his lips.

A few minutes passed in silence and then, quite suddenly, his attention was brought back to the presence of his young nephew by a knock-knock-knocking noise on the front of his desk. Lindir had taken to rhythmically kicking his desk.

Erestor tutted and looked up with narrowed eyes at his nephew whose gaze was fixed on the front of the desk, undoubtedly the part which he was kicking and in doing so, scraping the polish. "Could you stop damaging my desk?"

"I could," Lindir said, but he did not stop kicking the most prized piece of Erestor's study.

Erestor grit his teeth. "And could you please do so?" he pressed with forced patience.

"Of course, dear Uncle," Lindir said. And he stopped kicking and promptly reminded Erestor of the reason for his presence in the study at all by saying, loudly and clearly and with a sorrowful, self-pitying sigh, "I am bored."

"So I have gathered," Erestor said, "you are very _very_ bored."

"Extremely bored," Lindir agreed.

Erestor nodded slowly at him, a tight smile on his face. Lindir gazed blandly back at him. "But you see, Lindir, I, unlike you, am very very busy."

"Extremely busy?" Lindir inquired, looking doubtful.

"Extremely busy," Erestor affirmed. "And you see, my dearest nephew…"

"_Only_ nephew," Lindir reminded.

_And oh, by the Valar, sometimes that is one too many,_ Erestor silently thought. "Yes," he agreed. "Only nephew. You see, Lindir, I am so busy that I have no time to entertain you."

"Really?"

"Really," Erestor said, nodding solemnly at his little nephew's blank expression.

Then Lindir's brows knitted in a disbelieving expression. "I do not believe you," he said. "You are only reading."

Erestor could have slammed his head down on the parchments. "Lindir, reading is very important."

There was a silence during which Lindir tilted his head in the other direction, his lower lip pushed out thoughtfully. Then his face cleared and he said, "Curing boredom is very important too."

"Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But it is not as important as my reading these papers," Erestor said. "I am sorry, Lindir, but I have no time to amuse you."

"Oh, but you are doing fine at the moment," Lindir said. "If you just continue as you have been doing since I arrived, then, maybe I could come away only mildly bored instead of severely bored?"

"Lindir, nobody ever died from boredom."

"And nobody ever died from insomnia," Lindir droned. "So put down your papers now and amuse me. You can read them instead of sleeping tonight."

"Lindir, I have to report the contents of these papers to Elrond tonight," Erestor said. "I have allocated no time to sleeping between now and my reporting the contents to him after supper."

"Then just continue as you have been doing until now," Lindir said, with a small, indifferent shrug. "As I said, I am happy to come away only mildly bored as opposed to severely bored."

"Lindir, I have not been able to do any reading since you arrived here," Erestor said. "I do not mean to sound as if I do not care about you and the fact that you are suffering from the crippling, but quite harmless illness known as boredom, but I do mean to say that at least for a few hours, I consider the task of attending to the papers in front of me more important than attending to you."

Lindir pouted most prettily. He was obviously extremely disappointed and putout by this information. Then, with a small and dignified sniff, he rose and put an elegant hand on an even more elegant and narrow hip. "I know when I am not wanted," he said. And with another sniff, he promptly turned and walked over to a door inset in the wall of Erestor's study – a door through which Erestor recalled his nephew had not arrived. Erestor watched him bemusedly; the door led to Glorfindel's study. His tiny nephew opened the door and with a flounce in his step disappeared through the gap. As the door fell closed behind him, Erestor distinctly heard him proceed to inform his neighbour, in the most long-suffering of tones, "I am bored. Amuse me."

Erestor snorted and covered his face with his hands.


End file.
